iShares MSCI India ETF

INDA

Market cap $6.72B

Venugopal Garre, Managing Director and Head of India Research at Bernstein, discusses India's AI ambitions. He sees opportunities in India's capital equipment and data center developer companies as ways for investors to play the proxy AI trade.

Our global markets watchlist tracks nine prominent indexes from economies around the world.

Brokerage firm Bernstein has retained its "Neutral" stance on Indian equities and maintained its year-end Nifty 50 target of 26,000, implying an upside of around 10% from Friday's closing levels. However, the brokerage cautioned that a combination of weak macroeconomic conditions, earnings downgrades and a revival in equity issuance activity could limit gains even if markets receive a near-term boost from easing geopolitical tensions.

India is likely ​to see below-average ‌monsoon rains for the first time ​in three ​years in 2026, ⁠the government said ​on Friday, ​stoking concerns over farm output and growth ​in Asia's ​third-largest economy.

Indian stocks are on track for their first annual decline in more than a decade, according to a Reuters poll of equity analysts, as sustained foreign investor outflows and limited participation in the global artificial intelligence (AI) rally weigh heavily on market sentiment. Benchmark equity indices in the world's fastest-growing major economy have underperformed most global peers this year.

Our global markets watchlist tracks nine prominent indexes from economies around the world.

The Reserve Bank of India's three-year dollar/rupee buy-sell swap auction received strong investor demand on Tuesday, with total bids reaching nearly $10 billion, almost double the size of the auction. The central bank accepted 141 bids in the foreign exchange swap auction, while receiving a total of 254 bids worth $9.8 billion.

James Thom, Senior Investment Director of Asia Equities at Aberdeen Investments, doesn't believe that the current weakness in the Indian rupee is a repeat of 2013 'taper tantrum' scenario. He adds that some level of government intervention is needed to shore up investor confidence in the country's currency and equity markets.

Asia's smaller companies have delivered stronger returns than the region's large-cap stocks over the past five years, while also offering lower volatility and broader sector exposure, according to HSBC Asset Management. The firm said Asia small-cap stocks outperformed their large-cap counterparts by nearly 3% annualised at the index level over the period.

India's markets regulator has proposed changes to how strike prices are listed and refreshed in options contracts, aiming to prevent trading gaps when prices move sharply during the day. The Securities and Exchange Board of India, or SEBI, published a consultation paper on Monday and has sought public comments by 15 June.